Q. “Dear Frank, my girlfriend told me I was the best lover she ever had, but I know she’s been with many more partners than I have. I fear she’s just telling me what I want to hear. Should I believe her?
Unsure in Idaho
Dear “Unsure,” I’m happy to say that you’ve confirmed yours and every “male’s” worst nightmare. When a woman says, “You’re the best,” it’s usually because she means it at that time, but has no intentions of suggesting that it literally means that “in all the world and out of all the lovers I’ve had, you’re really tops!” The chocolate cake on that special weekend is usually “the best,” and so is that movie she cried at last as well as the “just because” gift you gave her back when–all these things and a million other niceties are likely just terrific whenever they are had, but in bed, I’ve never believed a single lover who said, “I was the greatest baby.” The reason is, every woman at some time or other has said this to me and there is no way I can believe that I’ve been every woman’s best lover. Impossible. But just like that piece of special occasion cake, it’s better than a kick in the shins, so don't dismiss it completely.
What you do have to worry about most is when they reach for the remote mid-way through the “act” and say, “no, you finish, knock yourself out, Desperate Housewives is on now …” My advice at this point is to first, finish; then, to accept the fact that unless you’ve got some new aftermarket retro fit tickler from beyond belief for her to try, it’s probably not going to get much better than it is. Routine is not a bad thing. Being “regular” is always good. If you have flush toilets and a weekly orgasm compliments of someone other than yourself, then I’d say you’re easily in the top 5% most privileged on the planet. Only in America and a few other affluent places on Earth, do we humans have the luxury of worrying about the level of performance we can muster during the sex act. Sex is mostly in the brain, so I’d simply choose to believe the lady and enjoy what little you know.
The exception to all the above however lies in the rare occasion when a woman (or man for that matter, this really is a two way street) exclaims something like, “You were amazing … I’d say you’re the SECOND best lover I’ve ever had.” This was actually a quote from an ex lover way back. Now at first, it felt like a kick to the “boys below.” How dare she tell me I’m second to anyone! Now, it’s critical at this point to not show any obvious signs of concern. Men typically have the instinct hard wired in our bones to puff up like peacocks whenever our masculinity is under fire. The best defense in these situations is always to downplay the urge to strut. Walking around with a bath towel held up firmly by your lower appendage is never funny and does nothing to influence the judge standing before you, even when chanting the common disclaimer, “Look Ma, no hands!” Remember, every guy before you tried that when they were seeking validation, so unless you want to run the risk of being told “Yeah, but Charlie’s towel wasn’t flying at half-mask like that” then just forgo the urge to prance.
So why would a girl tell a guy he was “second best?” Because she means it. If a woman is even going to quantify the act of love making in terms of first and second and a list of runners-up, up the kazoo, then clearly she’s given this some thought. That’s usually our worst nightmare; you don’t want your lover actually giving thought to how good an ex was do you?
The only concern I had at being told I had the silver medal sewn up, was wondering how many other contenders for the title there were? I mean, if it was between me, the love of her life and a smarmy uncle from her Dad’s side, I’d not be feeling too proud of my self. As it happens however, this girl confessed to triple digit numbers! I’ll not give you the exact digits the three began with, but let’s just say it was somewhere between 4 and 2.
Obviously, had the Alaskan pipeline been measured in erections instead of feet, this lady’s list of ding-a-lings could have spanned much of that great divide and that made “victory” over the other “umpteen-hundred” fellows all the sweeter. Sure, they were there before me, gave it their best shot, but out of all those other bone-heads, I’m number two. Read it and weep gentlemen. The lady has spoken.
Just remember, it’s all relative. If you’re “number one” right now to someone, then be happy. If they’ve never said that to you, then at least be happy that he/she isn’t full of shit. If they say you’re second, then believe it. Anyone can be number one, but the truth is, there’s only one number two.
FQ
Monday, November 26, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
But does Sally like it Hairy?
Listen to FQ here:
web.mac.com/personalfiction/iWeb/Personal%20Fiction/Novel%20Notions/0491A90E-9E84-43BC-9011-5E82C3B01B2A_files/FQ1.m4a
By the time "When Harry Met Sally" first appeared on screen, I'd just completed a decade of agony married to my first wife–a period longer than the time it took "Harry" to finally catch the adoring attention of that pre-op honey Sally (a character Meg Ryan has seldom resembled since, unfortunately). Sally was idyllic in the mind of this Anglo-fundamentalist-raised boy from the East Bay projects. She was the archetype model for most of my allowable, guilt-free orgasms I'd had while making "love" to the woman I'd married instead. If you had the lights low enough, used the candles rather than the overhead and squinted like cat hair was in a wad under your eye lids, you could kind of sort of envision Sally writhing below my beaded brow, rather than the street-smart Latino-slash-French “pop” in a skillet I was riding . I'd given up the ideal blond "pull my strings and I'll laugh a-lot Barbie" and had settled for the hardened fury of a woman whom I’d never really clicked with. It was however “safe” and unfortunately, quite sedate as well. Passions faded in place of the fashion to get married, despite the fact that I was supposed to be Harry and she was supposed to be into me as a good Sally should. Her eyes were also not supposed to be brown.
This girl wasn't funny, she didn't laugh at my jokes either. Instead, we acquired "stuff" that newlyweds were supposed to acquire and accumulated sad memories in the process.
Somehow years later, I awoke just before the dream I had decided to forgo, before the notion of finding the "right girl for me" had become a faint vapor of memory forever interrupted by the nagging alarm that life had become. Just before my mind simply decided the front of my brain was no longer a viable top spot for mental sticky notes from my youth to hang; just before the forefront of my brain could exclusively pin current "to-do's" declaring how I should roll the TP “over instead of under” and “keep the lid down at all times” so “both of us” had to flip it up, I remembered where the dream must have been spawned …
I should first say in all fairness that Miss “brown-eyes” wasn’t wrong while I was right. She was in fact the perfect girl, for the right man. Of course, I wasn’t he. She wasn’t the “she” that I wanted either. So how could this happen? I’ve asked myself some hard questions like this lately; about where my dreams had come from and why I’d allowed them to nearly vaporize and I now believe the origin for my particular “Harry meeting Sally” ideal actually came from the clouds atop Skull Island. Yes, it was foggy back then, a mountainous land full of mystery and danger, the unknown around every turn but the promise of wonder and thrills beyond conception loomed wild all the same. Kind Kong people. This miss-guided man’s sexuality and text-book for how to get a girl was formed in the stop-motion mind fuck that Ray Harryhausen was allowed to pour into my skull back when I was five, six years old. I loved it then and still see it as the absolute honest depiction of what many men grapple with most: what the hell do I have to do to get the girl of my dreams.
Much like Sally, Fay Ray sallied forth into the hairy grasp of prince charming reluctantly. He loved her enough “not” to eat her. That’s saying a lot for a boy who can only grunt. He dances, fights, storms out enemies with the protective love only found in our most primal bone matter. It’s love only butting rams understand. An obsession with the prize just beyond reach, the train just leaving the station, the boat just unhitching from the dock. It’s the urge to leap, to hang with one’s underbelly exposed, laughing in baby talk and bawling in blind rage when someone turns on the light abruptly, exposes the correct time, farts you out of sound sleep. Harry had the same obsession with Sally. He said “no” to reality and plotted a course for his fair maiden despite all odds.
The balance of course is being brave when dragons approach and being braver when reality rears its Medusa-like noggin and dispels your nocturnal emissions on the foggy bank they came in on. I had somehow bought into the idea of wanting to show the world (or the girl) I could be king, climb the tower, save a princess, die for someone worth loving and instead I found myself cast in a Mexican Soap with little chance of syndication. It was a stark reality check back then and I’ve since watched Harry and Sally meet more than 39 times on DVD and I still cry when they finally kiss for keeps at the end. The dream continues.
I’m not suggesting that I’m proud of the fact that my romantic inclinations were forged in the mythical stories of hairy lugs falling for cookie cutter cuties or little guys called “Harry” who climb tall buildings in hopes of a happy ending with their two-dimensional damsel in distress, but the age old coming of age attraction young apes have for climbing fences to find a greener place to play was infused in me way back when and it has periodically been re-released in special box sets my mind has allowed it to produce ever since.
I still vote for the underdog. I still want to believe Woody Allen is adorable to Mia Farrow or Diane Keaton and that neither really minds a man who requires a phone book step before a deep look into their eyes can be had. It’s cute. Maybe the retarded boy can be sweet enough in monosyllabic rhymes. Maybe the brute will learn to use his thumb when grasping a fork. Maybe the newly labeled “ex-con” will find her waiting at the end of five years with open arms and a warm lasagna. Maybe as I get older I’m hoping that swatting flies from “our” picnic basket lunch will suffice for fending off bombing gunners from our high perch. Maybe finding the one who will get the dry jokes is enough and performing before her in cute quips is all I need do before I find her flowing hair spilling from yon tower in a heap before my feet, calling me to climb.
The larger point to make here is that it’s important to not give up the dream. At whatever level you can still effectively perform, whether by sword or slapstick, grunting, guffawing, groping in and out of the shadows, men must be obsessive with their dreams and the girl contained there-in; we must be willing to swing without fear of branches breaking or we’ll die inside, wither on neglected vines like forgotten raisins. An old proverb, even before the frontal lobe on Skull Island was forged, once declared, “People without a vision perish.” Failure to thrive is a bitch. Never settle when you settle down should be the middle aged man’s mantra. Nothing that settles is worth the spit it takes to clean it with. Dust, the level in an overflowing toilet, these are comparable to a man’s dream that resides locked in a headboard next to a tattered Penthouse or that which is only contained in 90 minutes of fiction.
I was blurry-eyed and nearly comatose for many years, but thanks to a brittle old video tape (which if you press just so on the cover of, you’ll hear a tiny, drive-in speaker-like growl emanate from–got to love them 60th Anniversary releases), I once again awoke to my original dream. Kong’s tiny battle cry spoke to me. He helped me remember now why I was born, what my mission was and still is. I’m lint-rolling the old monkey suit of armor I once donned and am hoping this time, the next damsel will be someone I can simply go bananas for. She’ll pick the ticks off my hide while I in turn brush out her golden (brown, black or purple) locks, comb of course clutched firmly in foot with my hairy and adorable, opposable big toe.
–FQ
A close friend of mine, Buck Frampton is working on a new song I'd like to recommend as a wake up call for men who might ever settle again. Remember your dream, that original vision is still viable, just don't settle. Give Buck a listen at:
http://web.mac.com/personalfiction/iWeb/Personal%20Fiction/Cellar%20Door%20Records%20previews/431954A2-4CB1-4F0D-BD57-5527852A73D0.html
web.mac.com/personalfiction/iWeb/Personal%20Fiction/Novel%20Notions/0491A90E-9E84-43BC-9011-5E82C3B01B2A_files/FQ1.m4a
By the time "When Harry Met Sally" first appeared on screen, I'd just completed a decade of agony married to my first wife–a period longer than the time it took "Harry" to finally catch the adoring attention of that pre-op honey Sally (a character Meg Ryan has seldom resembled since, unfortunately). Sally was idyllic in the mind of this Anglo-fundamentalist-raised boy from the East Bay projects. She was the archetype model for most of my allowable, guilt-free orgasms I'd had while making "love" to the woman I'd married instead. If you had the lights low enough, used the candles rather than the overhead and squinted like cat hair was in a wad under your eye lids, you could kind of sort of envision Sally writhing below my beaded brow, rather than the street-smart Latino-slash-French “pop” in a skillet I was riding . I'd given up the ideal blond "pull my strings and I'll laugh a-lot Barbie" and had settled for the hardened fury of a woman whom I’d never really clicked with. It was however “safe” and unfortunately, quite sedate as well. Passions faded in place of the fashion to get married, despite the fact that I was supposed to be Harry and she was supposed to be into me as a good Sally should. Her eyes were also not supposed to be brown.
This girl wasn't funny, she didn't laugh at my jokes either. Instead, we acquired "stuff" that newlyweds were supposed to acquire and accumulated sad memories in the process.
Somehow years later, I awoke just before the dream I had decided to forgo, before the notion of finding the "right girl for me" had become a faint vapor of memory forever interrupted by the nagging alarm that life had become. Just before my mind simply decided the front of my brain was no longer a viable top spot for mental sticky notes from my youth to hang; just before the forefront of my brain could exclusively pin current "to-do's" declaring how I should roll the TP “over instead of under” and “keep the lid down at all times” so “both of us” had to flip it up, I remembered where the dream must have been spawned …
I should first say in all fairness that Miss “brown-eyes” wasn’t wrong while I was right. She was in fact the perfect girl, for the right man. Of course, I wasn’t he. She wasn’t the “she” that I wanted either. So how could this happen? I’ve asked myself some hard questions like this lately; about where my dreams had come from and why I’d allowed them to nearly vaporize and I now believe the origin for my particular “Harry meeting Sally” ideal actually came from the clouds atop Skull Island. Yes, it was foggy back then, a mountainous land full of mystery and danger, the unknown around every turn but the promise of wonder and thrills beyond conception loomed wild all the same. Kind Kong people. This miss-guided man’s sexuality and text-book for how to get a girl was formed in the stop-motion mind fuck that Ray Harryhausen was allowed to pour into my skull back when I was five, six years old. I loved it then and still see it as the absolute honest depiction of what many men grapple with most: what the hell do I have to do to get the girl of my dreams.
Much like Sally, Fay Ray sallied forth into the hairy grasp of prince charming reluctantly. He loved her enough “not” to eat her. That’s saying a lot for a boy who can only grunt. He dances, fights, storms out enemies with the protective love only found in our most primal bone matter. It’s love only butting rams understand. An obsession with the prize just beyond reach, the train just leaving the station, the boat just unhitching from the dock. It’s the urge to leap, to hang with one’s underbelly exposed, laughing in baby talk and bawling in blind rage when someone turns on the light abruptly, exposes the correct time, farts you out of sound sleep. Harry had the same obsession with Sally. He said “no” to reality and plotted a course for his fair maiden despite all odds.
The balance of course is being brave when dragons approach and being braver when reality rears its Medusa-like noggin and dispels your nocturnal emissions on the foggy bank they came in on. I had somehow bought into the idea of wanting to show the world (or the girl) I could be king, climb the tower, save a princess, die for someone worth loving and instead I found myself cast in a Mexican Soap with little chance of syndication. It was a stark reality check back then and I’ve since watched Harry and Sally meet more than 39 times on DVD and I still cry when they finally kiss for keeps at the end. The dream continues.
I’m not suggesting that I’m proud of the fact that my romantic inclinations were forged in the mythical stories of hairy lugs falling for cookie cutter cuties or little guys called “Harry” who climb tall buildings in hopes of a happy ending with their two-dimensional damsel in distress, but the age old coming of age attraction young apes have for climbing fences to find a greener place to play was infused in me way back when and it has periodically been re-released in special box sets my mind has allowed it to produce ever since.
I still vote for the underdog. I still want to believe Woody Allen is adorable to Mia Farrow or Diane Keaton and that neither really minds a man who requires a phone book step before a deep look into their eyes can be had. It’s cute. Maybe the retarded boy can be sweet enough in monosyllabic rhymes. Maybe the brute will learn to use his thumb when grasping a fork. Maybe the newly labeled “ex-con” will find her waiting at the end of five years with open arms and a warm lasagna. Maybe as I get older I’m hoping that swatting flies from “our” picnic basket lunch will suffice for fending off bombing gunners from our high perch. Maybe finding the one who will get the dry jokes is enough and performing before her in cute quips is all I need do before I find her flowing hair spilling from yon tower in a heap before my feet, calling me to climb.
The larger point to make here is that it’s important to not give up the dream. At whatever level you can still effectively perform, whether by sword or slapstick, grunting, guffawing, groping in and out of the shadows, men must be obsessive with their dreams and the girl contained there-in; we must be willing to swing without fear of branches breaking or we’ll die inside, wither on neglected vines like forgotten raisins. An old proverb, even before the frontal lobe on Skull Island was forged, once declared, “People without a vision perish.” Failure to thrive is a bitch. Never settle when you settle down should be the middle aged man’s mantra. Nothing that settles is worth the spit it takes to clean it with. Dust, the level in an overflowing toilet, these are comparable to a man’s dream that resides locked in a headboard next to a tattered Penthouse or that which is only contained in 90 minutes of fiction.
I was blurry-eyed and nearly comatose for many years, but thanks to a brittle old video tape (which if you press just so on the cover of, you’ll hear a tiny, drive-in speaker-like growl emanate from–got to love them 60th Anniversary releases), I once again awoke to my original dream. Kong’s tiny battle cry spoke to me. He helped me remember now why I was born, what my mission was and still is. I’m lint-rolling the old monkey suit of armor I once donned and am hoping this time, the next damsel will be someone I can simply go bananas for. She’ll pick the ticks off my hide while I in turn brush out her golden (brown, black or purple) locks, comb of course clutched firmly in foot with my hairy and adorable, opposable big toe.
–FQ
A close friend of mine, Buck Frampton is working on a new song I'd like to recommend as a wake up call for men who might ever settle again. Remember your dream, that original vision is still viable, just don't settle. Give Buck a listen at:
http://web.mac.com/personalfiction/iWeb/Personal%20Fiction/Cellar%20Door%20Records%20previews/431954A2-4CB1-4F0D-BD57-5527852A73D0.html
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